100 Titles: A Basic Library on Japanese Americans

Compiled by Brian Niiya

All things considered, there is an enormous amount of literature on the Japanese
American experience. Unfortunately, much of it is dated or problematic in some
way. Often, the most widely available works are the ones which are most
problematic, while some of the best work remains relatively inaccessible, whether
buried in obscure academic journals or consisting of unpublished master's theses
or doctoral dissertations. For one who is trying to find good introductory works
on Japanese Americans or who is trying to build a library of such titles,
difficulties abound.

The following list is one attempt to sort through the enormous amount of
literature on Japanese Americans to arrive at a core bibliography. In compiling
this list, I have tried identity the best work on Japanese Americans, whether
academic or popular, historical or social scientific, fiction or non-fiction,
obscure
or well known. I have tried to list works which cover the breadth of the
Japanese
American experience, including topics on which there has been relatively little
research. There are of course many other possible lists which could be arrived
at; this is just one possible list. I hope that this list will serve to generate
dialogue on the state of Japanese American studies and help to indicate the areas
where
research is lacking.

1. Aguilar-San Juan, Karin, ed. The State of Asian America: Activism and
Resistance in the 1990s. Boston: South End Press, 1994. Foreword by David
Henry Hwang. Afterword by M. Annette Jaimes. [Anthology of works on
various contemporary issues facing Asian Americans.

2. Ano, Masaharu. "Loyal Linguists: Nisei of World War II Learned Japanese in
Minnesota." Minnesota History 45 (1977): 273-87. [Focuses on Nisei in the
Military Intelligence Service Language School at Camp Savage and Fort
Snelling, Minnesota during World War II.]

3. Asian Women United of California. Making Waves: An Anthology of
Writings By and About Asian American Women. Boston: Beacon Press,
1989. [Anthology which includes both historical/social science and creative
pieces; includes prose by Valerie Matsumoto, Kesaya E. Noda, R. A. Sasaki,
and Wakako Yamauchi; poetry by Janice Mirikitani and Sakae S. Roberson;
and historical studies by Valerie Matsumoto and Gail M. Nomura which deal
specifically with Japanese American women. There are also many other
pieces which deal with Asian American women as a whole.]

4. Azuma, Eiichiro. In This Great Land of Freedom: The Japanese Pioneers of
Oregon. Ed. Akemi Kikumura, Lawson Inada, and Mary Worthington. Los
Angeles: Japanese American National Museum, 1993. [Catalog for exhibit of
the same name. Includes poetry by Lawson Inada.]

6. Chuman, Frank F. The Bamboo People: The Law and Japanese-Americans.
Del Mar, CA: Publisher's Inc., 1976. [A history of laws pertaining to
Japanese Americans.]

7. Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. Personal
Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and
Internment of Civilians. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1982.
[Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of
Civilians is a concise overview of the Japanese American experience during
World War II.]

8. Consulate-General of Japan. Documental History of Law Cases Affecting
Japanese in the United States, 1916-1924. 2 Vols. San Francisco: Consulate-
General of Japan, 1925. New York: Arno Press, 1978. The Asian Experience
in North America: Chinese and Japanese . Roger Daniels, advisory ed. [Two
volume compilation of legal cases involving Japanese Americans up to 1924.
Volume one contains naturalization cases while volume two contains alien land
law cases.]

9. Daniels, Roger. The Politics of Prejudice: The Anti-Japanese Movement in
California and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion. 1962. 2nd edition.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977. [Definitive history of the
anti-Japanese movement in California between 1905 and 1924]

10. __________. Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II.
New York: Hill and Wang, 1993. [Short (114 pages of text) overview of the
Japanese American World War II experience including a section on the
redress movement. Also includes photographs and a section on recommended
reading.]

11. __________, Sandra C. Taylor, and Harry H. L. Kitano. Japanese
Americans: From Relocation to Redress. Salt Lake City: University of Utah
Press, 1986. [Anthology of papers coming out of the International Conference
on Relocation and Redress held in Salt Lake City in 1983 covering many
different aspects of the Japanese American World War II experience.]

12. Dower, John W. War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War.
New York: Pantheon Books, 1986. [Examines racial stereotyping on the both
and American and Japanese sides during World War II and how these
stereotypes recur in different forms during times of peace.]

14. Duus, Masayo. Unlikely Liberators: The Men of the 100th and the 442nd.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987. [A history of 100th Infantry
Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the famed Nisei World
War II U.S. Army units derived mainly from interviews with Nisei veterans.]

15. Endo, Russell. "Japanese of Colorado: A Sociohistorical Portrait." Journal
of Social and Behavioral Sciences 31 (Fall 1985): 100-10. [Provides and
historical and contemporary overview of Japanese Americans in Colorado.]

16. Ethnic Studies Oral History Project/United Okinawan Association of Hawaii.
Uchinanchu: A History of Okinawans in Hawaii. Honolulu: Ethnic Studies
Program, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1981. [Major anthology of focusing
on the Okinawan community in Hawaii. Includes many historical pieces as
well as a section of oral history transcripts of Okinawan Issei from Hawaii.]

18. Fugita, Stephen S., and David J. O'Brien. Japanese American Ethnicity: The
Persistence of Community. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991.
[Examines the persistance of Japanese American identity and community in
face of structural assimilation.]

19. Gardiner, C. Harvey. Pawns in a Triangle of Hate: The Peruvian Japanese
and the United States. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981.
[Definitive study of the World War II odyssey of Japanese Peruvians.]

20. Girdner, Audrie, and Anne Loftis. The Great Betrayal: The Evacuation of
the Japanese-Americans during World War II. Toronto: Macmillan, 1969.
[General journalistic overview of the Japanese American World War II
experience.]

21. Glenn, Evelyn Nakano. Issei, Nisei, War Bride: Three Generations of
Japanese American Women in Domestic Service. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1986. [Study of Japanese American women in domestic
service based largely on oral histories former workers.]

22. Hagedorn, Jessica, ed. and introd. Charlie Chan Is Dead: An Anthology of
Contemporary Asian American Fiction. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.
[Includes selections by forty-eight famous and not-so-famous Asian American
writers.]

23. Hane, Mikiso. Peasants, Rebels and Outcastes: The Underside of Modern
Japan. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982. [Looks at the effect of Japan's
modernization on the peasantry--the group the vast majority of Issei came out
of.]

24. Hata, Donald Teruo. 'Undesirables': Early Immigrants and the Anti-Japanese
Movement in San Francisco, 1892-1893: Prelude to Exclusion. New York:
Arno Press, 1978. The Asian Experience in North America: Chinese and
Japanese . Roger Daniels, advisory ed. [About the earliest Japanese migrants
to the U.S. and the beginning of anti-Japanese agitation.]

25. Hayashi, Brian Masaru. 'For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren':
Assimilation, Nationalism, and Protestantism among the Japanese of Los
Angeles, 1895-1942. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995.
[Examines the diversity of the Japanese American Protestant community in
pre-World War II Los Angeles by focusing on three very different Japanese
American churches. Based on a 1990 UCLA doctoral dissertation.]

26. Hellig, David J. "Afro-American Reactions to the Japanese and the Anti-
Japanese Movement, 1906-1924.Ó Phylon 38.1 (Mar. 1977): 93-104.
[Analyzes the attitude towards Japanese Americans exhibited in the African
American press during the anti-Japanese movement period.]

27. Higa, Karin M., ed. The View from Within: Japanese American Art from the
Internment Camps, 1942-1945. Catalog for a 1992 exhibit organized by the
Japanese American National Museum, UCLA Wight Art Gallery and the
UCLA Asian American Studies Center. Includes an overview essay by Higa, a
historical overview by Lane Ryo Hirabayashi and James A. Hirabayashi, a
chronology by Brian Niiya, personal reflections by Wakako Yamauchi, and a
selection of color plates.

28. Higgs, Robert. "Landless by Law--Japanese Immigrants in California
Agriculture to 1941." Journal of Economic History 38.1 (Mar. 1978): 205-
26. [Economic study of the Issei in agriculture concludes that they had
achieved middle class status by the eve of World War II.]

29. Hirabayashi, Lane Ryo, and George Tanaka. "The Issei Community in
Moneta and the Gardena Valley, 1900-1920.Ó Southern California Quarterly
70.2 (Summer 1988): 127-58. [Examines the strawberry farming origins of
what would later become a major Japanese American residential community.]

30. Hohri, William. Repairing America: An Account of the Movement for
Japanese American Redress. Pullman: Washington State University Press,
1988. [Autobiographical account by the leader of the National Council for
Japanese American Redress, one of three major redress organizations.]

31. Ichihashi, Yamato. Japanese in the United States: A Critical Study of the
Problems of the Japanese Immigrants and their Children. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1969. New York: Arno Press, 1969. [Hugely influential
study of the Japanese American community, written in part as a response
defending the Issei from the wild claims of anti-Japanese movement
proponents.]

32. Ichioka, Yuji. "A Study in Dualism: James Yoshinori Sakamoto and the
Japanese American Courier, 1928-1942." Amerasia Journal 13.2 (1986-87):
49-81. [Analyzes the life and writings of James Yoshinori Sakamoto, founder
of the first exclusively English language Japanese American newspaper.]

33. __________. The Issei: The World of the First Generation Japanese
Immigrants, 1885-1924. New York: The Free Press, 1988. [Historical study
of the mainland Issei experience focusing on the actions and thoughts of the
Issei themselves. Incorporates the numerous published articles on the Issei by
Ichioka which have appeared earlier.]

35. __________. "Japanese Immigrant Nationalism: The Issei and the Sino-
Japanese War, 1937-1941.Ó California History 69.3 (Fall 1990): 260-75, 310-
11. [Examines Issei support of and identification with Japan in the period just
prior to World War II.]

36. Inada, Lawson F. Before the War: Poems as They Happened. New York:
Morrow, 1971. [Anthology of poems by influential Sansei poet, writer, and
teacher.]

37. Irons, Peter. Justice at War: The Story of the Japanese American Internment
Cases. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. [An examination of the
U.S. government response to the Hirabayashi, Korematsu, and Yasui cases
which exposes the government's cover-up of data which would have disproved
its claims of "military necessity.Ó]

38. __________, ed. Justice Delayed: The Record of the Japanese American
Internment Cases. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989.
[Compilation of the legal records of the various Endo, Hirabayashi,
Korematsu, and Yasui cases including the coram nobis efforts of the 1980s;
includes an introduction which provides an overview of the coram nobis
cases.]

39. Ito, Hiroshi [psued]. "Japan's Outcastes in the United States.Ó In DeVos,
George, and Hiroshi Wagatsuma, ed. Japan's Invisible Race: Caste in Culture
and Personality. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. 200-21.
[1950s era study of the burakumin (outcaste) population among Japanese
Americans.]

40. Ito, Kazuo. Issei: A History of Japanese Immigrants in North America.
Shinichiro Nakamura, Jean S. Gerard, trans. Seattle: Executive Committee
for the Publication of Issei: A History of Japanese Immigrants in North
America, 1973. [1000+ page volume based on oral history data obtained from
Issei in the Pacific Northwest in the 1960s. Originally published in
Japanese.]

41. Iwata, Masakazu. Planted in Good Soil: A History of the Issei in the United
States Agriculture. 2 Vols. New York: P. Lang, 1990. American University
Studies, Series 9, History, Vol. 57. [Epic, region-by-region study of Japanese
Americans in agriculture.]

42. James, Thomas. Exile Within: The Schooling of Japanese Americans, 1942-
1945. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987. [Study of various aspects
of education in the concentration camps including pre-War Relocation
Authority educational programs largely implemented by Japanese Americans
themselves, the philosophical underpinnings of the WRA educational
philosophy, the resettlement of Nisei college students, and schooling in post-
segregation Tule Lake.]

44. Kashima, Tetsuden. Buddhism in America: The Social Organization of an
Ethnic Religious Institution. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. [Study
of the Japanese American Buddhist church.]

45. Kikumura, Akemi. Through Harsh Winters: The Life of a Japanese
Immigrant Woman. Novato, CA: Chandler and Sharp Publishers, 1981. [A
life history of an Issei woman in rural Central California.]

46. Kimura, Yukiko. Issei: Japanese Immigrants in Hawaii. Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 1988. [Social history of the Issei in Hawaii which
incorporates many previous works on the subject by the author.]

48. Kotani, Roland. The Japanese in Hawaii: A Century of Struggle. Honolulu:
Hochi, Ltd., 1985. [Popular history of Japanese Americans in Hawaii
commemorating the 100th anniversary of large scale Japanese migration to
Hawaii.]

49. Lukes, Timothy J., and Gary Y. Okihiro. Japanese Legacy: Farming and
Community Life in California's Santa Clara Valley. Cupertino, CA:
California History Center, 1985. Local History Studies 31. [Community
history of Japanese Americans in the Santa Clara Valley in California.]

50. Masumoto, David Mas. Country Voices: The Oral History of a Japanese
American Family Farm Community. Del Rey, CA: Inaka Countryside
Publications, 1987. [The community is Del Rey, California; the work mixes
oral history, fiction, and memoir to provide a penetrating look at Japanese
American farm life.]

51. Matsumoto, Valerie. Farming the Home Place: A Japanese American
Community in California, 1919-1982. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1993. [Study of the Japanese American community in Cortez, a farming
colony in central California, arguably the first JA community study done with
a feminist perspective.]

52. Miyamoto, Kazuo. Hawaii: End of the Rainbow. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle,
1964. [Epic novel focusing on the fortunes of one Japanese American family
in Hawaii; many real Issei and Nisei appear in these pages.]

53. Miyamoto, S. Frank. Social Solidarity among the Japanese in Seattle.
University of Washington Publications in the Social Sciences 11.2 (Dec. 1939):
57-130. Seattle: Asian American Studies Program, University of Washington,
1981. Occasional Monograph Series No. 2. Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1984. [Classic study of the Japanese American community in Seattle on
the eve of World War II.]

54. Modell, John. The Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation: The
Japanese of Los Angeles 1900-1942. Chicago: University of Illinois Press,
1977. [Economic study of the pre-World War II Japanese American
community in the Los Angeles area.]

56. Moriyama, Alan T. Imingaishi: Japanese Emigration Companies and Hawaii,
1894-1908. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985. [A study of Japanese
American emigration companies and their role in inducing Japanese
emigration to Hawaii.]

57. Murayama, Milton. All I Asking for Is My Body. 1959. Afterword by
Franklin Odo. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988. [Novel set in the
plantation camps of pre-World War II Hawaii.]

58. Nagata, Donna K. Legacy of Injustice: Exploring the Cross-Generational
Impact of the Japanese American Internment. New York: Plenum Publishing,
1993.

59. Nakano, Mei. Japanese American Women: Three Generations, 1890-1990.
Berkeley and Sebastopol, CA: National Japanese American Historical Society
and Mina Press, 1990. [Study of Issei, Nisei, and Sansei women on the
mainland; accompanied a museum exhibit by the National Japanese American
Historical Society.]

60. Nelson, Douglas W. Heart Mountain: The History of an American
Concentration Camp. Madison, WI: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin,
1976. [Definitive study of one World War II American concentration camp.]

63. Odo, Franklin S., and Kazuko Sinoto. A Pictorial History of the Japanese in
Hawaii, 1885-1924. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1985. [Handsome
collection of photographs, tables, and text documenting the Issei experience in
Hawaii.]

65. Okamura, Raymond Y. "The American Concentration Camps: A Cover-Up
through Euphemistic Terminology." Journal of Ethnic Studies 10.3 (Fall
1982): 95-108. [Analyzes the official terminology which is still often used to
describe the Japanese American World War II experience.]

66. Okihiro, Gary Y. Cane Fires: The Anti-Japanese Movement in Hawaii, 1865-
1945. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991. [History of Japanese
Americans in Hawaii which makes the case that there was an organized anti-
Japanese movement in Hawaii as on the mainland.]

67. Okinawa Club of America, comp. History of the Okinawans in North
America. Ben Kobashigawa, trans. Los Angeles: UCLA Asian American
Studies Center and The Okinawa Club of America, 1988. [Compilation of
various works documenting the history of Okinawans in the mainland United
States.]

68. Okubo, Mine. Citizen 13660. New York: Columbia University Press, 1946.
New York: Arno Press, 1948. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1983.
[Book of line drawings and text based on the author's experiences at Tanforan
Assembly Center and Topaz.]

69. Ota, Shelley Ayame Nishimura. Upon Their Shoulders. New York:
Exposition Press, 1951. [Epic novel centering on a Japanese American family
in Hawaii.]

70. Papanikolas, Helen Z., and Alice Kasai. "Japanese Life in Utah." In
Papanikolas, Helen Z., ed. The Peoples of Utah. Salt Lake City: Utah State
Historical Society, 1976. 333-62. [General history of the Japanese American
community in Utah.]

71. Sato, Susie. "Before Pearl Harbor: Early Japanese Settlers in Arizona."
Journal of Arizona History 14.4 (Winter 1973): 317-34. [Study of the pre-
World War II community in Arizona.]

72. Sawada, Mitziko. "Dreams of Change: The Japanese Immigrant to New York
City, 1891-1924." Diss., New York University, 1985. [Contrasts the pre-
immigration conceptions of Issei in New York with the post-immigration
reality.]

73. __________. "After the Camps: Seabrook Farms, New Jersey, and the
Resettlement of Japanese Americans, 1944-47." Amerasia Journal 13.2 (1986-
87): 117-36. [Study of Seabrook Farms, New Jersey, a community where
many Japanese Americans who resettled from World War II concentration
camps moved to; also discusses War Relocation Policy towards resettlement.]

74. Shibutani, Tamotsu. The Derelicts of Company K: A Sociological Study of
Demoralization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. [Uses a
demoralization framework in a study of an underachieving Nisei military unit
during World War II.]

77. Stephan, John. Hawaii under the Rising Sun: Japan's Plans for Conquest after
Pearl Harbor. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984. [On Japan's plans
for occupying Hawaii after a successful attack during World War II; several
Hawaii Issei played roles in formulating the plans.]

80. Takahashi, Jerrold Haruo. "Changing Responses to Racial Subordination: An
Exploratory Study of Japanese American Political Styles." Diss., University
of California, Berkeley, 1980. [Exploration of Nisei political thinking as they
came of age in the 1930s.]

81. Takaki, Ronald. Pau Hana: Plantation Life and Labor in Hawaii, 1835-1920.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983. [History of the multi-racial sugar
plantation labor workforce in Hawaii of which Japanese Americans were a
major part.]

82. __________. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian
Americans. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1989. [One of two major
recent histories of Asian Americans.]

83. Tamura, Eileen H. Americanization, Acculturation, and Ethnic Identity: The
Nisei Generation in
Hawaii. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994. [Primarily a study of
education of the
Nisei in Hawaii.]

84. Tateishi, John. And Justice For All: An Oral History of the Japanese
American Detention Camps. New York: Random House, 1984. [Volume of
edited oral history transcripts with thirty former concentration camp
internees.]

85. Thomas, Dorothy S. The Salvage. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1952. [Looks at those who resettled out of the concentration camps in the East
and Midwest; includes fifteen life histories of such people. The second
published volume of the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement
Study.]

86. __________, and Richard Nishimoto. The Spoilage. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1969. Originally published in 1946. [Looks at the Japanese
American community in the concentration camps with a special emphasis on
segregation, the "disloyal" at Tule Lake, and renunciation of citizenship. The
first published volume of the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement
Study.]

87. Tsuchida, Nobuya. "Japanese Gardeners in Southern California, 1900-1941."
In Cheng, Lucie, and Edna Bonacich, ed. Labor Immigration Under
Capitalism: Asian Workers in the United States Before World War II.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. 435-69. [Examines the
beginnings of Japanese gardeners organizations in the Los Angeles area.]

88. Tsurutani, Hisashi. America Bound: The Japanese and Opening of the
American West. Betsey Scheiner, trans. Tokyo: Japan Times, Inc., 1989.
Originally published in 1977 as Amerika Seibu Kaitaku to Nihonjin. [On
Japanese immigrants to the United States--primarily those who worked in the
railroad and mining areas--and their role in the development of the West.]

89. Uchida, Yoshiko. Picture Bride. Flagstaff, AZ: Northland Press, 1987.
[Novel centering on an Issei picture bride from her life in Japan to her
incarceration in an American concentration camp during World War II.]

90. Walls, Thomas K. The Japanese Texans. San Antonio: Institute of Texan
Cultures, 1987. [Study of Japanese American in Texas; includes a chapter on
the three Justice Department administered World War II internment camps in
Texas.]

91. Waugh, Isami Arifuku. "Hidden Crime and Deviance in the Japanese-
American Community, 1920-1946." Diss., University of California,
Berkeley, 1978. [Study of crime among the Issei and Nisei in Los Angeles
before and during World War II.]

92. Weglyn, Michi. Years of Infamy: The Untold Story of America's
Concentration Camps. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1976. [Classic
study of Japanese Americans and America's World War II concentration
camps.]

93. Yagasaki, Noritaka. "Ethnic Cooperativism and Immigrant Agriculture: A
Study of Japanese Floriculture and Truck Farming in California." Diss.,
University of California, Berkeley, 1982. [Sprawling study of pre-World
War II floriculture and truck farming in both San Francisco and Los Angeles;
also includes a chapter on Japanese American immigrant banking.]

96. Yamauchi, Wakako. Songs My Mother Taught Me: Stories, Plays, and Memoir.
New York:
Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1994. [Anthology featuring
the work of
noted Nisei playwright, artist, and short story writer Yamauchi.]

97. Yanagisako, Sylvia Junko. Transforming the Past: Tradition and Kinship
among Japanese Americans. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985.
[Study of Japanese American kinship emphasizing the process of culture
change; focuses on marriage, filial relations, and sibling relations.]

100. Yoshida, Ryo. "A Socio-Historical Study of Racial/Ethnic Identity in the
Inculcated Religious Expression of Japanese Christianity in San Francisco,
1877-1924." Diss., Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley, CA), 1989.
[Examination of the Japanese American Christian church in San Francisco and
the evolution of a uniquely Japanese American theology.]

100 Titles taken from Japanese American History: An A-to-Z Reference from 1868 to the Present, Brian Niiya, editor. (New York: Facts On File, Inc, 1993). pp.364-70.